Summary
Summary
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Summary
Campaigns Launched So Far | 73/100 |
Revenue | $93 |
Cost | $1,253.86 |
Total Profit/Loss | -$1,160.86 |
Ok, so another $88.75 spent on Google and $52.20 spent on Bing.
Results? 2 Sales @ $20 each on Clickbank = $40 Revenue.
Pay Per Call
Since the last update I’ve taken a step back and taken some time to look at my current campaigns and my strategy towards them.
Teespring taught me to launch launch launch. Test $30 and repeat.
It seems I can’t apply this strategy to Pay Per Call because it takes some time and spend to get some insight into what the right keywords to bid on are and for the cost/click to decrease.
For example, the first $50 spend will allow me to look deeper into what exactly people are typing into Google to trigger my keywords and which keywords are leading to clicks. There’s no other way to get this insight apart form putting $50 out there. I’m basically paying for data that can potentially point me in the right direction.
I’ll find out that instead of ‘local dentist’, people are searching for, ‘low cost dentists in Manhattan’, ‘Dentists for 2 year olds near me’, etc.
This allows me to tighten up my adgroups and give it another shot which is where the second $50 spend comes into play.
I think I’ll have to set aside a $100 spend budget for my Pay Per Call Campaigns from now on.
I spent some time analysing me analytics data and realised the following,
25 out of the 28 clicks from one of my campaigns did not come from mobile!
That’s a big problem.
I need my ads to appear on only mobile so people can simply click and trigger the call function. People browsing on desktops are rarely in calling mode, their in browsing mode.
I saw this was the case for many of my campaigns! I had spent $250+ on non mobile traffic and stupid keyword triggers.
It was kind of a good realisation because it taught me to go through this a little slower and that there’s options I can edit to make my campaigns perform much better.
So from now on I select either ‘Call Only’ ads or ‘Text ads’, make sure I click the ‘mobile’ option in the ads set up and pause the other, ‘non-mobile’ ads. I also increase my device preference bid by 20%. Hopefully this should take out computers/tablets straight out of the equation.
Talking To Reps
Like I mentioned at the start, I took some time to evaluate things. I called my Google rep and told him to check out my campaigns and see if I was missing anything. He gave me a tonne of advice.
I called my cousin who’s a Google Adwords Specialist for a local company and he showed me how to look at all the above data.
I also got in contact with someone from a forum that does PPCall and we’re most likely going to share ideas/progress and help each other grow.
My learnings in this space has been tremendous. From total PPCall noob to knowing enough to hopefully find a profitable campaign eventually, this month was well worth the challenge.
Bing –> ClickBank
Bing is an interesting traffic source. It’s definitely quality but is in many ways, very different to Google.
I’ve read a lot on people promoting Clickbank offers over there so I decided to give it a shot. I set up 3 campaigns and let some traffic run.
A day later I made a sale. Two days later, another one.
So now I’m sitting on 2 sales from the same product which I should hopefully, be able to turn into a profitable campaign.
I’ve bid pretty broad on Bing. Eg, for a Photography product, I’ll bid on things like, ‘online photography course’, etc.
The most important thing here is a negative keyword list. Without one, you’ll never make a profit.
When I started implementing the right negative keywords, I started making sales because my ads were displaying for the right keywords.
So I took out keywords such as,
- guides
- tutorials
- free
- video
- youtube
etc,
Words that people who are interested in looking for free tutorials and videos would be searching.
Everyday I keep adding to the list as my analytics reports picks up crappy keywords.
Moving Forward
I’m taking a slower approach and am slowly moving past the newbie phase of these traffic sources, (hopefully).
What I mean by that is my ‘stupid mistakes’, phase should be over allowing me to save a lot more of my spend and strengthen up my profit/loss margins.
I’m going to be focusing on,
- Bing to Clickbank
- Google to Pay Per Call
- and PPV to CPA offers.
I haven’t set up my PPV stuff yet but as soon as I do, I’ll be launching some CPA offers which will open up a whole new set of things to test.
You’ve probably realized I like to spend a lot of money.
It’s because I’ve realized the only way to learn is to spend. Without spending and losing, you will not learn the exact things you need to change.
Their investments into my knowledge base that will stick there forever.
If you read success stories on StackThatMoney and Aff PlayBook you will see many where people have lost $1,000s before finding a campaign.
It’s how the industry works and when you figure this out, you’re learning rate will increase 10 fold.
Mateen
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If you like this series let me know in the comments so I know to keep going!
Summary
Campaigns Launched So Far | 70/100 |
Revenue | $53 |
Cost | $1,112.91 |
Total Profit/Loss | -$1,059.91 |
Since the previous update, an additional $41.54 was blown spent on Bing & $222.06 was blown spent on Google.
And not a single sale from it. Ouch!
Looking back I could have saved 80% of those costs by avoiding a bunch of mistakes but I guess you don’t know this information till you put your money in and make those mistakes.
The other day I came across this case study from RingPartner on how an affiliate found and optimised a campaign.
He recommended bidding 1/4 of the payout. This initially didn’t make sense to me because I like bidding in first position no matter how much it costs. Maybe it’s a PPV thing.
The problem with Google Search traffic for Pay Per Call offers with bidding in first position is that you’re going to end up spending a lot of money to test. Especially when you don’t know what you’re doing like me.
So instead of spending $50 and only getting a hand full of clicks at $5-$6 per click, I’m bidding much lower, (in 4th – 8th positions), and only paying $1.50 for clicks!
This way, I can generate a lot more traffic and have more stats to analyze.
I also spent a lot of money on stupid keywords because I avoided putting in negative keywords. Over time, I realized what keywords to add to the negative keyword list and am now getting the keywords I want.
I’ve also realised that if you can maintain a good CTR then Google will start ranking you higher and charging you less. I was paying $5.50 when I first started. Now, I’m paying less than half that and in some cases, still maintaining the same position rank!
It’s taken a lot of money to learn this, ($400 on Search), which is actually normal for me to spend and learn from.
I get $3,000 – $4,000 from this blog and if I’m not using it to learn how to master traffic sources than I’m wasting it.
Sure, I can save it and build my bank account but I’ll learn nothing.
I’d rather make these small time investments and learn the ins and outs of traffic sources so that one day, the knowledge will come together to make me millions, (hopefully). I can easily afford to spend $1,000 – $2,000 testing per month and the more I spend, the more it seems I learn.
Launching Campaigns
I’ve launched at least 20-30 campaigns/angles since the last update but not many of them bought in results due to low traffic so I haven’t counted them all.
I’m starting to figure out the difference between buyer keywords and browser keywords. For example, if I’m promoting a dental offer than I don’t want general keywords like,
- Braces
- Cheap Dentures
- Dentist Reviews
Instead, I want to dig real deep and layer my keywords. If you’ve followed my Teespring Tutorials than you would know how important layering is.
Nowadays, I’m bidding on things like,
- Best Dentist Near Me
- Affordable Sedation Dentist in Georgia
- Gentle Dentist For Seniors
- etc
Notice the layering? (service + geo location + demographic)
I’ll probably have around 500+ ad group combinations with this type of layering but my click costs will be real cheap not to mention ad/keyword quality score.
I’ll get a few clicks from each ad group and filter out all the ones that aren’t making me money. It’s a very long process but if you can find a good scaleable campaign then it can bring you in money for years!
I’ve only scratched the surface with Pay Per Call. There are another 100 or so offers to test and I’ve only tested 2.
I’m also testing some Bing -> Clickbank Campaigns. The costs there are just so cheap! Some really valuable keywords are around 10-30 cents and if I can find a good converting clickbank product then I should be able to make some money.
All in due time. We’re currently in test mode so let’s just take things slow and learn from our spend.
I’m thinking of continuing this challenge throughout the whole year. Let me know in the comments section if you’d like this. Let’s see how much I spend before I find a winner and how many campaigns I launch.
It’s a great way for everyone to see the realities of the business and how much effort you have to put in to find a profitable campaign.
I always said it was a tough business. I hope, by now you can see what I mean.
A business that can earn you millions can’t be made possible without investing a lot of time, money and effort.
Mateen
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